This was apparently shot yesterday but it’s making the rounds today. At first it doesn’t look like anything is happening but there’s a white car stopped in the street next to a black SUV. Then horns start honking and people start running in that direction. The payoff comes at the end when you see the white car pull away and there’s a large police SUV directly in front of it. The white car zooms into the wrong lane and drives around the police SUV. There’s no car chase (those are illegal in SF), there’s no nothing. The thieves are just gone and its not clear if the cops are sitting in the car or are somewhere else.

They broke into a car in front of police in SF 😳 pic.twitter.com/T9diBzWswv

— The Yoc (@AntiochTweets) August 23, 2023

I have questions starting with this one: Why couldn’t the cops at least turn their SUV to block off the car’s exit? Also, why didn’t they get out of the car before it drove away? They just look helpless.

As you can see, that video was posted on X yesterday. This morning, another break-in made the news. A family of tourists got out of their rented minivan for 15 minutes and when they came back their bags had been stolen. This happened around the corner from where city officials were announcing their new plan to deal with car break-ins.

[Lindsey] Dobbelare, a Missouri resident, was touring the Palace of Fine Arts with her family when they returned to their rental car on Baker Street — just to find the back window broken into and all of their belongings stolen.

The car was just around the corner from the planned news conference, which was expected to feature District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, Police Chief Bill Scott and Supervisor Catherine Stefani. At the conference, law enforcement officials announced new strategies to use bait cars to lure potential smash-and-grab thieves, as well as deploy more officers to tourist areas, which are often the hardest-hit by thieves.

Dobbelare said three different homeowners in the area had come up to her after the break in and told her “This is an epidemic.” City officials did hold their press conference in almost the same spot a little while later and announced their new plan to use bait cars to catch thieves.

“We intend to catch people in the act,” SF Police Chief Bill Scott said, noting that police do see a lot of “repeat offenders” doing multicar break-ins.

Scott laid out a two-pronged approach to combat vehicle break-ins and theft, including setting up bait car operations and increasing police patrols in tourist-heavy areas, specifically at the Palace of Fine Arts, along Lombard Street and in the Fisherman’s Wharf area.

The SF Standard reports that a police spokesman rejected the SF Chronicle’s reporting about this morning’s break in, denying it happened near the press conference. But they didn’t say where it did happen. In any case, this is so common that denying one incident really doesn’t matter. These video clips just made news last week. The driver filming this just started following the guys in the white Lexus as they made their rounds robbing cars. Note that one of the cars had someone in it when they broke into it. You can hear a woman screaming as they drive off with her bag.

UPDATE: In this video, the 2nd parked car targeted by the thief actually had someone sitting in the back seat of the blue SUV . The scofflaw breaks the window & snatches a bag, eliciting screams from the SUV. pic.twitter.com/WzKacoRFGl

— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) August 17, 2023

This won’t stop until a few of these crews wind up in prison for a long stretch and other thieves have second thoughts about the risks. I don’t think bait cars are going to do much of anything to deter this.